Calling all units of Fail: Pedobear Wanted, dead or Alive!

From boingboing, a hilarious but sad piece of news to start the day: Clueless pedo-hysterical cops (or maybe police-state advogates looking for an excuse to stir up a scare) think that Pedobear, 4chan's favorite politically incorrect mascot is...well...I don't know what they think it is, but "the San Luis Obispo County Sheriff's Department alerted local media to warn parents that the image had been adopted by pedophiles and sexual deviants" (Oh noes, deviants!!!) and are out earning their pay by bothering silly geeks who hang out too much at geek conventions and internet boards.

If you are just as clueless as the Sheriff, please check wikipedia, or this nice write-up at gawker on the whole silly thing.

As these guys put it,
"This admittedly risqué line of humor shouldn't be seen as condoning pedophila. Child pornography is banned on 4chan, and the site's users have helped authorities track down pedophiles. But the freedom to joke about it, even offensively, is part of 4chan's ethos of absolute free speech, liberty from censorship, and intentional bad behavior."

Remember freedom of speech? The whole "I may disagree with what you say but I would fight to mild inconvenience for your right to say it?"

Really, people, you are making Pedobear sad.

The whole pedo-histerya, just like the terror hysteria, just like the flu histerya, or the WMD hysteria (that led to a whole pointless, wasteful war), just like all the other ways of inflating (sometimes real, sometimes fictional) dangers beyond their measure and scaring the people out of their wits for political gain, is getting way out of hand. When adult human beings can no longer joke -in good or bad taste- and simple drawings are banned as thought-crimes, then I guess you won't need to worry about pedophiles anymore, simply because we will all, young or old, be reduced to the statute of children living "safely" in a police state.

Thankfully, we now have president Maria Ozawa, and she won't stand for this! Not on her watch! :)

Update: As an antidote of Win to today's stupidity, here's Brass Eye 2001 Special: 'Peadogeddon'.